Trion Worlds announced that last week's participation in the Extra Life charity marathon and a promotion related to it helped give its MMORPGs RIFT Online and Defiance a record-breaking week last week. The company said that over a quarter of a million new players joined their online games, RIFT and Defiance. Bookended by the relaunch of RIFT as a free-to-play game on Steam and the charity marathon for Extra Life, Trion’s celebration week included promotions, in-game special events, and giveaways across both games to celebrate both new and veteran players.

"We were ecstatic to see the numbers,” said Bill Fisher, RIFT’s Game Director. “Outside of new launches, this kind of thing doesn’t happen. I had to ask our data guy to recheck the number because it was unbelievable.”

RIFT experienced the highest single day gain in new users since the game’s launch more than 2 years ago.

In addition to the Celebration Week, Trion Worlds took part in the Extra Life charity gaming marathon for the third year in a row. Trion Worlds earned the distinction of being named the #1 highest fundraiser of any games company registered. With over 3,900 registered participants, Team Trion Worlds raised over $63,000 for children’s hospitals around the country during the 25-hour non-stop gaming marathon.

“The outpouring of support was overwhelming,” said Trick Dempsey, Defiance’s Creative Lead. “We sent free copies of Defiance to Extra Life participants and tens of thousands of new gamers came to play the game with us. I was floored to see how many people not only jumped on to play but also who watched the stream and cheered us on.”

“It goes to show that our philosophy of ‘the more you give, the more you get’ really resonated,” said Scott Hartsman, Trion Worlds CEO. “We’re proud to support our players with great content and to be able to join together with them and support children’s hospitals.”

Trion Worlds also launched the 2.5 update to RIFT (called Song of Dreams) on November 6. Defiance’s second DLC, Arkbreaker, is scheduled to launch this December. RIFT Song of Dreams features the Song of Dreams "Mini-Saga" that adds underwater gameplay into the mix; Gifts of the Fae (level-60 version of fan-favorite and reworked Telaran instances every week) revamped areas like Iron Pine Peak, new dimensions, new PVP elements, improvements to the store, and international shards. You can learn more about the update here.